E 

£95 




Class L 44Q 
Book . f. 9 5 



SPEECH 



^°^-^'^JkT 



HON. THOMAS EWING, 



CHILLICOTHE, OHIO, 

1 
Before a Republican Mass Meeting, Sep. 29th, 1§60. 



CINCINNATI: 

RICKEY, MALLORY & CO., 75 WEST FOURTH STREET. 



I860. 



SoJ-wv ■i^33/;4c4^ 



SPEECH 



OF THE 



HON. THOMAS EWING, 



AT 



CIIILLICOTHE, OHIO, 



BEFORE A REPUBLICAN MASS MEETING, SEPTEMBER 29tli, 1860. 



CINCINNATI: 
EICKEY, MALLORY & CO., 75 WEST FOURTH STREET. 

I860. 



•EfS 



West. Kes. Hlat. Soc. 



SPEECH: 



My Friends and Fellow Citizens: 

I am here to address you by the invitation of your 
Kepublican Central Committee. I belong to no existing 
party. I am attached to none, but to the Union — the 
States — their liberties and laws. I come not to arouse 
your enthusiasm in behalf of any man or any party, but 
to speak my own free thoughts, and the conclusions of 
my own judgment, as to the condition of our country and 
the course — of all that are open to us — which is most 
likely to tend to its permanent prosperity and peace. I 
will speak something of men, but more of principle and 
policy. 

And it may be proper for me to say, in the outset, that 
I have made up my mind to vote for Abraham Lincoln. 
I know him personally, and am satisfied with him. He 
is a manofunimpeached integrity — sufficiently acquainted 
with the recent history of our country, and the men and 
measures which have made up that history. I am satis- 
fied with the man, though I do not place him in advance 
of all his opponents. John Bell is his equal in personal 
qualities, of large experience, the elder statesman, and if 
we could make him our President, I would consider him 
a very safe choice. I know him much more intimately 
than Mr. Lincoln. I was in counsel with him daily for 
many months in times of trial, and besides my confidence 



in the statesman, I have for him a warm feeling of per- 
sonal friendship and regard. 

But he can not get the vote of Ohio. His ticket is but 
a disturbing element in the canvass. The contest in this 
State is between Lincoln and Douglas, and between them 
I cannot hesitate for a moment, and indeed, have no vote 
to throw away Avhen such is the contest. 

As a statesman, Douglas has shown himself inconsider- 
ate and recldess. The extreme agitation of the country 
for the past six years is due to his restless impatience for 
notoriety. He is politically answerable for all the terrible 
atrocities conse:iuent upon the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise. They were embodied in the repeal, and the 
eye of a statesman could not have failed to discern them 
there. He set a complicated machine, which he under- 
stood not, in wild and destructive motion, and his sole 
merit, is that he attempted but knew not how to check or 
direct its movement. Experience of the past does not 
warrant us in believing that the Repubhc would be safe 
under his guidance. It would-be once again Phaeton 
guiding the chariot of the sun. 

Mr. Breckinridge I know only as a gentleman, and as 
such I esteem him and believe him stainless. He has no 
record as a statesman, at least none known to me ; and 
he stands as the representative of an extreme sectional 
party, whose opinions and policy tend strongly to disunion. 
Besides, Lane, the candidate for Vice President, is, I 
think, little worthy of that honorable position. ]\Iy 
opinion of his personal merits will be found at large in a 
speech delivered in the Senate of the United States, Janu- 
ary 7, 18-31, on the Bradbury resolutions, which, with 
accompanying documents, is in Appendix to Congressional 
Globe, vol. 23, puges G7 and G8. 



This will suffice for the personal merits and status of 
the several candidates. The political questions involved, 
and my own relation to those questions, require a more 
careful presentation. 

I view the existing contest almost from a neutral stand 
point. I have belonged to no political party since the 22d 
day of March, 185 4 but have since that time looked upon 
the acts and purposes of each as subjects of approval or cen- 
sure, solely and only as in my opinion their efforts might 
be useful or injurious to the country. 

The RepubUcan party arose out of the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise. This attempt, when jBrst made, 
seemed an act of wanton childish recklessness, and took 
the nation by surprise. The people in no section of the 
Union desired it, or thought of it. That Compromise 
was the settlement of a difficult and dangerous question, 
with which thinking men of all sections were satisfied. 
The proposed repeal was received in the South with no 
approbation. I myself heard Southern Senators speak of 
it as meddlesome and officious — a thing which annoyed 
them greatly. Their ablest statesmen disapproved of it 
and would have resisted it had they not feared that dem- 
agogues at home might use it to their injury. In the 
North it excited indignation and alarm. While the mea- 
sure was still pending in Congress — and it was a long time 
pending — a convention was called to meet at Columbus, 
the avowed object of which was to combine the elements 
of opposition to that, irrespective of all other political 
issues. This was the seed-germ of the Republican party. 

It was a movement for the success of which I felt 
deep sohcitude. I had no fears of the permanent 
establishment of slavery in Kansas or Nebraska, but 
I foresaw the disorders to which the repeal must 



6 

give riso, and I greatly feared that the movement 
itself, under the guidance of extreme party leaders 
acting upon aroused public feeling, might ]je pushed 
beyond its legitimate object, and by attempting too much, 
fail in that, and do evil and not good by the effort. I 
wished to move the rock and leave the mountain at rest 
but I feared that our engineers would attempt both and 
ftiil in both. The object of the organization is shown by 
a letter of the State Central Committee, asking me to 
attend and address the Convention ; and my fears that it 
would fail by attempting too much, or turning aside from 
its avowed purpose, are shown in an extract from my 
reply, which I take the liberty to read : 



LETTER OF INVITATION. 

Columbus, Ohio, March 2d, 1854. 
Hon. Thos. Ewing, Lancaster, Ohio. 

You will see by the newspapers of this city, that a 
Mass Convention of the people of Ohio, without distinc- 
tion of party, has been called to meet in this city, on the 
22d day of March next. It is proposed that the Con- 
vention consist of all who are opposed to the repeal of 
the jMissouri Compromise, and the introduction of slavery 
into Kans IS and Nebraska. 

The undersigned Committee of Correspondence ear- 
nestly invite you to attend the Convention as one of the 
speakers on the occasion, Signed, 

E. K. ECKLEY. 



In my reply, after a brief discussion of the ordinances 
and laws which make up the history of the division of 



7 

our unoccupied territory between free and slave labor, I 
say: 

EXTRACT FROJI ANSWER. 

" The free and slave territory must be separated by a 
law, prior to its occupation or it will at no distant day 
separate itself in a manner greatly more injurious to the 
peace and good order of society. We can not ask our 
free laborers to mingle and associate with slaves without 
forgetting the dignity and importance of labor as a social 
and political element in our Northern communities, 

" The Missouri Compromise makes this separation. It 
was a wise and well considered measure. Its repeal would 
be a great TNTong and a great evil. As such, we ought to 
resist and if possible, avert it. On this the people of the 
North, almost as a body and a goodly portion of the 
South wiU unite. Let us engage in it in a manner becom- 
ing the subject — with calmness, prudence and considera- 
tion — and by no means suffer ourselves to be defeated in 
this, which we all feel to be just, right and necessary, by 
blending with it, or sufiering to be involved with it, any 
other object, however desirable to many. Let us take 
this single and alone. In any departure from the plain 
straightforward path to the one sole object there is dan- 
ger — danger of division, and with division defeat. We 
can probably prevent the infliction of the anticipated 
wrong ; if not Ave can certainly in due time and by con- 
stitutional means redress it. 

" I have purposely confined myself to the political and 
practical view of this subject, as in my opinion, it embra- 
ces the true principle of the measure which it is the object 
of the Convention to sustain. 

" Be kind enough to make known my concurrence in 
the expressed objects of the Convention, and my convic- 
tion that if pursued calmly and wisely, they can not fail 
of ultimate success." lam, very respectfully yours, 

T. EWING. 

Messrs. E. K. Ecklei and others. 



8 

In signifying my approbation of the objects of the 
Convention, I was careful to use the qualifying term 
" expressed," as I had little doubt that many ^Yho engaged 
in the movement would attempt, and I feared successfully, 
to extend it to other and widely different purposes. My 
apprehensions were realized. The Convention was com- 
posed of a large proportion of extreme anti-slavery men, 
it was led by extreme men, and it passed resolutions 
which in effect abandoned opposition to the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise — resolutions which, indeed, could 
not be carried out without the repeal, virtual, if not actual. 
In short, those who composed the Convention determined 
to reject the division of territory made by the Missouri 
Compromise, and go into a fight at large — a kind of irre- 
pressible conflict against the holders of slaves in general 
— while the admission of Kansas as a Free State was but 
an inconsiderable incident in the progress of their pro- 
posed action. Indeed, it must necessarily have arrested 
that progress and defeated the ultimate object of the 
leaders of that body. Their speeches announced and res- 
olutions prescribed a course of political action which 
involved as one of its essential elements, not the restora- 
tion but the permanent abandonment of the Missouri 
Compromise- 

The expressed object of the original organization — 
the restoration of that compromise, had met my approba- 
tion ; I united, therefore, in its pursuit with men of widely- 
different opinions on kindred subjects; but because I united 
with them in iliis, I could, therefore, not allow them to 
prescribe for me new laws of thought and action. They 
turned to the pursuit of other objects which must, as I 
believed, produce mighty mischiefs in their process of 
development — a polic}' which involved a long and fierce 



conflict, and which left the question of Freedom or Sla- 
very in the Territories, covered by the Missouri Compro- 
mise, unsettled while the war was waged; and it left Kan- 
sas, especially, delivered over to anarchy and violence. 
This necessarily cut off from the party many thousands 
who had in purpose or in act united in the original object, 
and who still continued to deske and promote that object. 
It drew a strictly sectional party Hne, which no one could 
pass, and necessarily involved the selection of a party 
leader who would be nothing more or less or other than 
the representative embodiment of the sectional party, and 
it as necessarily excluded any man of national opinion or 
reputation. Parties of many discordant opinions were to 
be united in the canvass ; it was, therefore, essential that 
their leader should have no record. Hence, in 1856, Mr. 
Fremont, a gentleman quito unknown in the political or 
public history of our country, was selected as their candi- 
date for President, and the 'party was defeated, while the 
origincd principle triumphed. For as far as public opinion 
had potency, Kansas was virtually a Free State on the 
day Mr. Buchanan took his seat as President. 

Thus, the original issue on which the Republican organi- 
zation was put to the country, was tried and sustained, 
while the partii which had abandoned it was defeated. 
And if Mr. Buchanan had regarded the clear indications 
of public will, and had facilitated the admission of Kan- 
sas under a constitution of her own adoption, the Bepub- 
lican party must have placed itself on national gTOund and 
sustained itself on general principles of national policy, 
or ceased at once to be a power in the land. But he and 
his advisers seemed to be struck with judicial blindness. 
Against all right, and truth, and justice, and against the 
2 



10 

ohvious sense of a large majority of the nation, they 
attempted to force a forged and false Constitution on 
Kansas, which was to make it a Slave State in contempt 
of the opinions of nine-tenths of its inhabitants. They 
persevered in the wrong even after they were f lirly whip- 
ped out of it. And when thus beaten beyond all possi- 
bility of recuperation, they kept the question open by 
refusing to admit Ksnsas as a Free State under a Consti- 
tution of her own adoption. Those who organized them- 
selves under the name of the Republican party, to exclude 
Slavery fi'om Kansas and Nebraska, virtually accomplished 
their object — it had become morally impossible for Sla- 
very to be forced into Kansas; but Mr. Buchanan kept 
the question open, and thus kept the Republican party 
united, vigorous and active by intriguing to prevent full 
and immediate consummation of its victory. That party, 
though the ultimate accomplishment of the object of its 
organization was rendered cer<^ain, had not yet actually 
accomplished it ; and it must live till it fulfilled its des- 
tiny. But, as I have said, men of differing and discord- 
ant opinions in other matters, united in this: Abolition- 
ists, higher law and irrepressible conflict men — all shades 
and degrees — up to and including the solid phalanx of 
Whig principles and opinion. And it happened in this 
case, as in most others, that extreme men wore the busy, 
active men always on the alert, little regarding the one 
purpose which united the great mass of the people, except 
in so far as it could be used as an instrument for their 
ulterior objects. They called and took control of con- 
ventions, and through them of many of the States. And 
the people acted with them, for they were ostensibly pur- 
suing the great object all had in view ; while the folly of 
the Administration excused them in public oi)inion when 



11 

they departed from or tresspassed beyond that object 
By this means the people of some of the States North 
and West were placed in a false position^ — misrepresented 
as to then- opinions and feelings by the public acts of their 
constituted authorities. In Ohio, extreme men ruled and 
seemed to be the majority, but they never were so. As 
in an effervescing fluid, all seems foam to those who look 
only on its surface, so did this element seem to be all of 
the party opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
mise, while in truth its strength lay in the calm, conser- 
vative Whig mass, which remained inactive below. As 
examples in our own State, of extreme party action, wit- 
ness the attack last year upon the independence of the 
Judiciary in the person of Judge Swan — the refusal of 
the Legislature last winter, when the subject was before 
them, to pass a law to prohibit the forming or fitting out 
in Ohio the marauding expeditions against our sister States, 
The bill in form and substance being as nearly as possible 
identical with a law of the United States, as to nations 
with whom we are at peace ; and, which indeed, modern civ- 
ilization has introduced into the codes of nearly all nations 
not piratical ; and the refusal of our Executive to surren- 
der fugitives fi'om justice — pursuant to the requirements of 
the Constitution* all which indicated that this party was 



*This, I find, is a heresy of some ten years standing, a fact which had 
escaped me, as I was too busily engaged in organizing a new department 
at Washington, at the time it arose, to give much attention to passing 
events. Our present Governor, however, is not responsible for it, but 
it is not the less a heresy, and highly injurious, especially in the connec- 
tion in which I have placed it. It is said, in the opinion of the Attorney 
General of that day, that this provision of the Constitution ought not to be 
extended, 1st. To cases not within the rule observed by the comity of 
nations; or 2nd. The cases designated in our treaties with foreign nations; 
3d. Or crimes known to the common law ; 4th. Or such as are recognized 
as crimes in the State called on to surrender the fugitive. Now, neither 



12 

engaged in a conflict which must be, in fact and deed 
irrcpressihh so long as it and the Union both endured ; 
and that the organic law of the republic had been super- 
seded by a higher or lo^vcr law — namely, the individual 
will, dominant in the minds of excited men. Such was 
the condition of things which caused me to stand aloof 
from the party, the objects of whose original organization 
I approved, and to advance which objects I labored after- 
wards out of the party earnestly, and, I have reason to 
believe, efiectively. 

But I looked for a reaction, and it has come. Conser- 
vative men, law-loving and law-abiding men, could not 
suffer the excesses of the time to go abroad under their 
apparent sanction and remain inactive. The reaction pre- 

one or all of these criteria will serve as a test, for 1st. There is no comity 

of nations as to extradition of criminals, as such. 2nd. Our treaties desig- 
nate the special crimes, and among them are not to be found the highest, 
namely treason, nor one half of the high crimes known to the laws of every 
civilized state and country, as burglary, larceny, rape, higamy, incest, perjury, 
etc., etc., etc. 3rd. The common law omits, of course, all crimes having 
their origin in the present changed condition of society, such as the mali- 
cious destruction of canal locks, reservoirs, etc., and the maliciously 
placing obstructions on railroads with intent to destroy life; and the 
fourth test, namely, that it must be a crime by the law of the State called 
on to make the surrender, would be subject to the last named difficulty, 
for Florida, Arkansas and Oregon could not surrender a fugitive who 
should be charged capitally with a crime against the canals, or railroads 
of other States. But the conclusive objection is, that the constitution 
gives no possible pretext for any such limited construction. The crime 
must be committed in the State making the demand, by a person actually 
within it; the laws of that State, therefore, must govern it; and as to the 
degree of the crime, the enumeration by the Constitution is in the descend- 
ing series, — "Treason, felony, or other crime." That is, lesser cv'imQ. 

As to what is said of trivial offenses, it seems to me clear that it is for 
the State whose laws declare the crime, to judge. The Constitution might 
well presume that no State would make an act criminal out of mere wan- 
tonness or folly. Nor can it be supposed that an oflFender would flee, or 
the executive of a State demand a fugitive except in cases where the 
offense was great, or greatly injurious to society. 



13 

sented itself in a two-fold aspect. Out of the party, by 
the Union organization in the North — in the party, by 
the rejection of extreme party leaders and the nomination 
of a sound conservative man for President at the late Chi- 
cago Convention. 

The resolutions of the Chicago Convention — the plat- 
form — is better than we have been accustomed to, in 
speeches and resolves, for four or five years past — better 
in its positions, much better in tone and temper. It quite 
rejects the heresy that any law applicable to the civil 
government of our Union is higher than the Constitution 
of the United States. It condemns in strong terms the 
organization of marauding expeditions in any of the 
States to attack the people or the institutions of neigh- 
boring States, (a thing which the Ohio Legislature had so 
recently refused to declare unlawful ;) and in its whole 
tone and temper counsels, peace and mutual respect of 
each other's rights between States, instead of the mainte- 
nance of a continual and irrepressible conflict. It also 
has discovered and declares that the nation has a mission 
other than that of perpetual war over Slavery. And 
especially it advances sound old Whig doctrine as to the 
fostering care which Government owes to the industry of 
its people. This suits me well. It is a recurrence to first 
principles- — a strong assurance that the party, as it now 
exists, intends to build up and preserve, and not pull down 
and destroy. 

But I do not think the adoption of a portion of the 
Declaration of Independence in very good taste, and such 
indeed seemed to be the opinion of a majority of the Con- 
vention; but beyond that it is quite unimportant. The 
clause adopted is true in the vague and general sense in 
which it was used by the framers of the Declaration, who 



14 

were three-fourths of them slaveholders. And in that 
sense it seems to have been taken by the Convention; for 
if not, it would be inconsistent with their other resolves, 
which assert in express terms the absolute right of States 
slave and free, over their domestic institutions. 

I object to the eighth resolution. The proposition 
" that the normal condition of all the territory of the Uni- 
ted States is that of freedom," is not true in point of fact 
The rule, the norma, which is announced by the proposi- 
tion, must apply if it has any meaning, to the territory as 
it stood at the time of the formation of the Constitution, 
when slavery existed under and by the law of nearly all 
the States and in all the Territories, except the territory 
northwest of the river Ohio ; and as to the after acquired 
territory, the norma or rule must be apphed to its condi- 
tion at the moment it became the property of the United 
States. And Louisiana, all that is now in question, was 
tlicn slave territory. 

The framers of the Constitution had no conception of 
this ^^ normal condition.'''' When they willed that the 
North-Western territory should be free, it was so declared 
by the adoption of the ordinance of 1787, with its pro- 
hibitory clauvse as binding under the Constitution. The 
South- Western Territory was left to slavery just where 
the laws of North Carolina and Georgia had held it. 
The ships sailing under the flag and carrying papers 
under the seal of the United States, attesting their nation- 
ality, are wherever they may sail on the high seas, part 
and parcel of the territory of the United States, and 
under the dominion, pure and unmixed, of her Constitu- 
tion and laws : and who would be bold enough to contend 
that prior to the year 1808, while the Constitution forbade 
the abohtiou of the slave trade, that the " normal condi- 



15 

tion " of the ships which hore the slaves was " that of 
freedom ?" Surely they had no condition ivhcdevcr except 
that which the Constitution, and the laws passed under it, 
created. I feel it clear to a demonstration that the prop- 
osition as to the " normal condition " of the territories of 
the United States in its most general or more restricted 
sense can not be maintained. 

The other branch of the resolution, namely the propo- 
sition, that Congress has but a limited power over slavery 
in the Territories, though advanced by the Chicago Con- 
vention in this eighth resolution, — by the Breckinridge 
Convention in their second resolution, and sustained by 
the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of 
Dred Scott vs. Sandford, does not command the assent of 
my judgment. But if the proposition that the power of 
Congress over the Territories is limited in that particular 
be true, the Breckinridge Convention and the Supreme 
Court of the United States have the best of argument, to 
say nothing of authority. But, with all my habitual def- 
erence and respect for that Court, and I think it second 
to none in the world for the qualities which give weight 
and dignity to a judicial tribunal, I can not divest myself 
of the opinion that it erred on this point, which Avas quite 
unnecessary to the decision of the case. 

Their error, in my judgment, consists in considering 
slaves as property merely ; instead of considering master 
and slave as relations, which in our artificial system, man 
holds to man. The latter is the view taken of it in the 
Constitution of the United Stftes. Slaves in th;it instru- 
ment are not treated as property, any more than minor 
children, apprentices, or men bound by contract to perform 
labor. Under the Constitution, property is not repre- 
sented — persons owing service are. If property escape 



16 

from one State and go into another, the Constitution does 
not direct that it shall be delivered up. If persons owing 
service escape, it does so direct. Congress is empowered 
to regulate commerce between the States. Commerce has 
to do with property. But the States exercise the sole 
power of admitting or prohibiting the importation from 
other States of persons owing service — in this their laws 
treat them not as property. Congress has the express 
power to regulate foreign commerce, but is denied the 
power until the year 1808 to prohibit the imigration or 
importation into any of the States now existing, of such 
persons as the said State shall think proper to admit. 
This implies the power to prohibit their importation into 
any new State or into any Territory, and the argument 
also involves this dilemma : If slaves are propcrtij merely, 
under the Constitution, Congress can prohibit their impor- 
tation into any Territory by virtue of its power to regu* 
late commerce between the States. If they be not prop- 
erty, but persons, the power of the sovereign (which the 
Supreme Court says Congress is) to regulate and fix the 
relations of man to man in the Territory is \vithout any 
hmitation, expressed or imphed. Congress has, in this 
point of view, the same power to prohibit slavery, so far 
as property exists in the labor of the slave, as it would 
have to make the son free at twenty, instead of twenty- 
one, thus depriving the father of one year of his labor. 
And I have so much confidence in the high character and 
elevated feeling and sense of justice of the Court, that I 
do not doubt the question wflil be re-considered when a new 
case arises, if it ever do arise, which shall require its ap- 
pHcation. 

But, if we admit, with the eighth resolution of the Chi- 
cago Convention, that the power of Congress is limited 



17 

in the Territories over that one special subject matter — I 
know not where to find an argument potent enough to 
resist the conclusion of the Supreme Court, sustained as 
it is by its high judicial authority. 

No vague generalities will avail anything on either 
side. No general purpose of gradual emancipation strong 
enough to affect the question can be found Avritten down 
in the Constitution — none to satisfy the legal mind that 
it was intended to deny Congress the power to admit 
slavery in the territories, when such generality, if any 
bear that aspect, is found side by side with the clause 
forbidding Congress to prohibit the slave trade for twenty 
years. The Declaration of Independence is cited, but it 
contains nothing, which upon sound legal construction 
could sustain the position even if all its language were in- 
serted in the Constitution. But this Declaration was 
written about fourteen years before the Constitution, and 
the common construction requires us to admit, that all 
in the former insti^ument, not consistent with the latter 
was reconsidered and rejected. Nor do I think it safe 
to infer from other generalities equally vague, touching 
the rights of property, which, in the language of the Con- 
stitution, slaves are not, that Congress is denied the pow- 
er to exclude slavery from the territories, when such gen- 
erality is found side by side with an implication quite as 
potent as a direct enactment, which authorizes Con- 
gress at once to prohibit the importation of slaves any- 
where except into States exising at the time of the forma- 
tion of the Constitution. I would that the eighth 
resolution of the Chicago Convention were not in its 
platform. It seems to be there for no other purpose 
than to give opponents advantage in the argument. It 



18 

is an abstraction, unless in every practical sense, as it is 
false in fact and logic. 

I know of but one case in which the normal question 
can arise, namely : in a registered American ship at sea. 
She sails or steams from Baltimore to New Orleans. Is 
a slave on board this ship free as soon as he is beyond 
the jurisdiction of any of the States ? And if he be, may 
Congress change this rule by law ? Here is the normal 
condition, with its attendant consequences, and here is 
the only place in which I can conceive that the irrepres- 
sible conflict can be kept up. It must be fought out on 
shipboard — it can not live on land. Still I can consent 
to let this abstract fallacy pass — reject the resolution and 
support the nomination, for I have no doubt that Mr. 
Lincoln, himself a sound lawyer, will esteem the Consti- 
tution of the United States superior to this section of the 
platform. It is impossible, without assumption, which 
can be made on one side as well as the other, to rest the 
admission or rejection of slavery in our present Territo- 
ries on any other ground than that of its status when it 
became part of the United States, or the subsequent Acts 
of Congress, or territorial law afiecting it. Forced as- 
sumptions and bold assertions will not avail — they con- 
vince nobody that reasons — and the Constitution, which 
speaks intelhgible language, and the law of nations 
leave the question where I have found it. The status or 
normal condition of Louisiana was that of a slave terri- 
tory. The Missouri Compromise gave all of it north of 
3G degrees 30 minutes to Freedom. The re[)eal of that 
com[)romise left it subject to the laws of the territories 
until they arc negatived by Congress. Hence the import- 
ance of the original formation of the Republican party, 



19 

and its maintenance on its original ground, and for its 
original objects, until those objects shall be accomplished 
— until it shall have fulfilled its destiny. Admitting 
that the institution of slavery is equal for the welfare of a 
State with that of freedom, which I do not think it is, 
(others do, and I have no right to force my opinion on 
them,) admitting this, we all know that the free and slave 
labor will not mingle. The free white man will not work 
with the negro slave in the same shop, or in the same 
field, because in his opinion it degrades him. Labor 
ceases to be honorable when it is especially the vo- 
cation of slaves. Hence emigration goes only from a 
free State, to a free state or territory. The new 
slave States and Territories are, therefore, shut out 
from immigration of free laborers as fuUy as the free 
State and Territories from the slave. The lines are pass- 
ed by a few, but such is the general fact. 

Louisiana was the general property of the Union. Its 
normal condition was that of slave territory, but it was 
not right that it should all remain so. The different sec- 
tions of the Union could not use and enjoy it together — 
it was therefore, just, and wise, and proper, that it should 
be divided between them so that each should enjoy his 
part to the best advantage ; and the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise broke up this just and well considered parti- 
tion, which it is the mission of the Republican party ac- 
tually or virtually to restore. The slave States have 
their share of the Territory — it is most ample for their 
wants. The free States must also have theirs. They 
must have it, not because they are the stronger, and can 
hold it — not because their institutions are better than 
those of the South, and therefore the one and not the 



20 

other ought to be extended — for to claim this in attempt- 
ing a peaceful adjustment, were arrogance which would 
ollend — not argument that would convince. But we are 
entitled to it by original right as our just partition — we 
are entitled to it by compromise and mutual agreement. 
And our rights asserted firmly, with dignified courtesy, 
will be much more readily conceded than if we mingled 
with their assertion, contumely and reproach. This dis- 
posed of — and I think we shall dispose of it amicably — 
the irrepressible conflict will be repressed, for there will 
be nothing remaining for which a conflict can be main- 
tained. 

Having fulfilled this its mission, the Republican party 
can not possibly maintain itself as a general Anti-Slavery 
party. The whole North was aroused to resist or redress 
a wrong. Old Whigs, old Democrats — men almost with- 
out respect to previous party distinctions, united in this, 
and their united effort and full success was only prevented 
by the fears of some that they meditated an opposite 
wrong while redressing this. But when the end is attain- 
ed, and the cause ceases, the organization must cease with 
it, or it must be placed on some other and more perma- 
nent basis. 

But as I have said, it cannot have success as a general 
anti-slavery party. The anti-slavery feeling in the North 
is strong enough and universal — no man wants slavery 
with us or near us — but it is a feeling of resistance — 
not of attack. We must be satisfied that there is an 
attempt meditated to obtrude slavery upon our li-ee Terri- 
tories in order to call that feeling into action, and make 
it control the opinion and conduct of the mass of our 
people. That the actual conflict is ended, I have no 
doubt. Indeed the attempt to extend slaver}- into Kan- 



21 

sas, even if it had been possible to effect it, was as unwise 
as it was unjust. Slavery as an existing thing, can not 
be taken into new Territories, without losing its hold on 
border States, — and its extension into Kansas must have 
greatly hastened emancipation in Missouri, which is only 
a question of time. It was recently said by Stevens, of 
Georgia, in a speech delivered in Augusta, that Slavery 
can not be extended judiciously, to new Territories, with- 
out re-opening the Slave Trade, to Avhich he declared him- 
self opposed. The same opinion was also expressed, 
though I do not now recollect the occasion, by Mr. Ham- 
mond, of South Carolina. That impression is becoming gen- 
eral in the South — it was therefore not their wise men who 
devised the extension of Slavery into Kansas. I have 
hence a right to conclude that the conflict is ended, so 
far as it depends upon Southern aggression. I conclude 
also, that the Republican party will within the present or 
early part of the coming year have fulfilled its original 
destiny, and must end also, or place itself on a basis of 
snbstantial national policy. An effort to this effect is 
made in the platform of the Chicago Convention, and 
generally I like the direction to which it points. It contains, 
however, one element useful perhaps for the present year, 
but fatal if made to hold its place in the future — an incor- 
poration of the general anti-slavery element in connection 
with its many sound principles of national policy. This will 
do while the attempt to force slavery upon a territory free 
by contract is continued ; but when that is past, settled, 
signed and sealed, it will then make it sectional. The 
leaders of the party claim for it a dominion of twenty 
years ; something more than one pohtical generation. They 
are mistaken if they fasten to it this sectional fallacy — an 
abstraction, false, useless, pregnant with evil — an apple of 



22 

discord and disunion. It cuts off all possible support 
from tlie Southern States and all the conservative support 
in the North and West. Erase it — wipe it out, and the 
party may live its twenty years ; retain it and it will but 
just survive the election of its President. 

I have little doubt of the election of INIr. Lincoln. He 
is an old Whig. He has had his poUtical training in a 
highly conservative party, of which he was a calm, con- 
siderate and reasoning member. And though he has 
passed through a fierce conflict — in which the aggression 
of slavery was the subject of attack and defense — which 
would naturally tend to deflect both expression and 
opinion, and in which he has probably said some things not 
strictly canonical, I doubt not that the feeling which that 
conflict excited has passed away, and that from the first 
to the last — in his inaugural address in which words will 
be things, and in his final message he will show hunself 
the President of the nation, not of a section or a party^ 
Then if misfortune come upon the country, he and all of 
us may feel that no uncalled for word or inconsiderate act 
of his will have caused it. Portunately, he will not be 
thrown upon an extreme party for support. The conser- 
vative interest nominated, and that also will elect him. 

Mr. Bell, if I mistake not, will have but small support 
in the Northwestern States — not because he is less wor- 
thy than Mr. Lincoln, but because he enters the canvass 
with no prospect of success before the people ; and it is 
the part of wisdom to attempt the good that is practica- 
ble — not that which is impossible. Indeed, it were wise 
for the especial liiends of jNIr. Bell to support Mr. Lincoln 
here ; and show him that the conservative interest on 
which he may rely is strong. But especially a contest 
against him is unwise on their part. If the election go 



23 

to the House, the chance of Mr. Bell for success 
there were greatly improved, by the fact that he has 
friends and well wishers among the supporters of Mr. Lin- 
coln. 

Such, fellow citizens, are some of the views which I 
entertain of the condition of our country, and the coming 
poHtical contest. Much has been said and done on both 
sides of the Hne to educate our people for disunion — to 
cultivate that mutual hatred and distrust which sets 
nations to war against each other, dissolves States and 
breaks up families. Of this we have everywhere too much, 
but it is becoming less and less to the public taste. Still 
I can not hope it will cease, for it is an inconceivably easy 
mode of being virtuous ourselves to forget our own 
faults, and attack and abhor the imputed vices of our 
neighbors. There are, indeed, many on both sides of the 
line who cry aloud for disunion ; but they are in all cases, 
as far as I know, a safe distance from the hne of contest. 
They are brave men who can, with unshaken nerves look 
upon, or rather read of, the strife and bloodshed and ruin 
and misery which such a conflict, if they can excite it, 
must bring upon the more exposed portions of our people. 
Some talk of a peaceful dissolution of the Union ; but 
with a people such as ours, perhaps with any people, that 
is impossible. The late terrible scenes in Kansas prove 
it We are of a noble race, possessed in a high degree of 
"vigor and energy and courage ; but once freed from the 
restraints of law and social order, as fierce and cruel as 
hons' whelps that have tasted blood. And if disunion 
should come, it would not be peaceful, but bloody, and all 
that is fierce and cruel in the land would meet in mutual 
vengeance and rapine on the line of conflict. 

But in my opinion the late imminent danger to 



' ^ 



24 

the Republic is passed. I feel that the subject of 
controversy, all that is worthy of a statesman's regard 
has passed and is about to pass away. Still, angry 
feelings will exist; popular declaimers can not spare 
a subject on which it is so easy to be eloquent 
and on which all can be eloquent alike ; but that mutual 
distrust and hatred which, more than all else, endangers 
the union, will gradually subside, if the people elect their 
President, and if wisdom and prudence control his official 
actions. 



